Free (but hardly easy) therapy

I have been in classes for about six weeks now. I absolutely love my classes and the school I'm at. Roosevelt is completely different from FWBBC, Trevecca, and Liberty. If you know much about my educational "journey" you know that after graduating from FWBBC I really wanted to get my license in Marriage and Family Therapy. I started at Trevecca and loved the Master's program there. I felt great about what I was studying until one day, out of the blue, I just didn't anymore. I felt such a strong urge to get out of the program. I just knew that I didn't want to spend the rest of my life working with married couples and their children. What to do next? I put of school for a couple of years until I decided that I wanted to be a school counselor. There weren't any great programs in Nashville, so I decided to work on my degree through Liberty University's online degree program. No offense to Liberty, but it just wasn't for me. I hated doing classes online. I missed the atmosphere of being in a classroom and really knowing your peers. And the course material just wasn't for me. Liberty's program was really geared more towards teachers and really pushed it's students toward a career in a Christian school. There's nothing wrong with Christian schools. I graduated from one. But my heart and my passion are in the inner city. I don't want the cushy job....I want the tough job with the kids that need me. That's where Roosevelt came in. It's an extremely liberal school (which makes things interesting!), but their passion is social justice. It's a built in part of the curriculum, no matter what you're studying. I love it!
For one of my classes, we had to write an autobiography. Now that it's done and turned in, I know why we had to do it. I had to write about what shaped me, what made me who I am. To say this was difficult was the understatement of the century! I wrote about things that I haven't thought about in a long time. I wrote about my childhood, and I recognize things now that I didn't (or just didn't want to) then. I wrote about the guys I loved, and how two of those relationships in particular shaped my views on love and friendship. I wrote about my friend Eric, and how his death probably affected me more than I've ever thought. I wrote about my dad and my family. Some areas of my life were so easy to write. In fact, I woke up at 2 in the morning one night, came out to my desk, and wrote for an hour about my high school ex. Other parts were hard. When I was writing about Eric, I just broke down. For the first time in a really long time, I really let myself cry and miss my friend.
Honestly, I'm glad I did it. I'm glad that I let myself be real and feel emotions that I haven't felt in a long time. It's something I would encourage everyone to do. It's difficult and emotionally draining, but so so theraputic. There's my first bit of counseling advice!